Gates Admits CIA Errors on USSR

ByAssociated PressMay 22, 1992

New York
— CIA Director Robert Gates has acknowledged that United States intelligence erred in analyzing the collapse of the former Soviet Union, but rejected criticism that the agency failed to foresee the event.

"Let me say at the outset that we did not predict the precise timing of the coup attempt last August that proved to be the beginning of the end," Gates said Wednesday in a speech to the Foreign Policy Association.

"However, neither did Gorbachev nor Yeltsin, and indeed, the coup plotters themselves have indicated that they decided to act at the last minute."